Jury selection to begin in Vrdolyak trial

November 03, 2008

Former Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak waves to the media as he leaves the Dirksen Federal Building on May 17, 2007, after pleading not guilty to bribery and fraud charges. (Tribune photo by Chuck Berman)

UPDATE: Former Chicago alderman and power broker Edward Vrdolyak pleaded guilty this morning to a kickback scheme involving the sale of a medical school building.

Jury selection was scheduled to begin today, but U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur sent the jury pool home.

Vrdolyak could be sentenced to as much as 5 years in prison.

Prospective jurors gather this morning in a federal courtroom in Chicago for the corruption trial of Edward Vrdolyak, the former legendary alderman.

Vrdolyak was indicted in 2007 in a kickback scheme involving the sale of a medical school building.

Vrdolyak has long been known as "Fast Eddie," both for his dealmaking and uncanny ability to stay clear of federal indictments as aldermen were being taken down around him.

Now he will face his own trial almost two decades after losing the 1989 mayoral election to Richard Daley and fading from the city's political limelight.

When prospective jurors assemble for Chicago's latest corruption trial, No. 22 on a list of questions that a judge may ask them during the selection process seems surprising:

Have you ever heard of Edward Vrdolyak?

Anyone older than 35 would likely remember him best for leading a bloc of white aldermen known as the Vrdolyak 29 against the city's first black mayor, Harold Washington, during the "Council Wars" in the 1980s. He is known to have been under investigation at least a dozen times, his name cropping up in such notable probes as Operation Silver Shovel, which toppled a half-dozen aldermen with the help of an FBI mole.

"He was always very smart, and he's a good lawyer," said former Ald. Dick Simpson, who joined the council at the same time as Vrdolyak in 1971 and is now a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"He's always managed not to do anything blatantly illegal, even if it might have been a little shady," Simpson said.

When Vrdolyak was indicted, some former adversaries snickered that the Fast Eddie they knew would never have been so careless. Alton Miller, Washington's press secretary and now a professor himself, joked at the time that maybe Vrdolyak was slowing down.